Glasgow 2014: Scots netballers helped by a Kiwi

Scotland captain Lesley MacDonald has high hopes. Picture: SNS

MOIRA GORDON

IN THEIR minds, Scotland’s elite netball players have been preparing for these Commonwealth Games for a number of years. But their bodies really only began the intensive work needed at the end of last year.

The hard work and dedication that had taken then to the cusp of selection was cranked up several notches with the arrival of Gail Parata as coach. With twice daily training sessions, five days a week, with game time and recovery sessions also factored in at the weekend, there is a greater intensity to the build-up.

One of the last sports to name its athletes, the 12-woman Scottish Thistles squad was revealed at a Team Scotland photocall at Stirling Castle this week.

It was a relief to finally have the names out in the open, according to captain Lesley MacDonald, who says there is great excitement in the squad. “We’ve been preparing for this for a number of years and it’s always seemed a long way away but, since the turn of the year, it’s been hectic,” says the 33-year-old sports development officer. “Our preparations have stepped up and the buzz around the squad has just been fantastic. As we go into the next few weeks, it’s just going to build and build.”

Coming from New Zealand, where netball is one of the biggest female sports, Parata has imbued the Scots with an even greater work ethic and self-belief, urging them to get the very best from themselves despite the drawback of having to juggle training with full-time jobs or studies.

“We are more physical when we’re on the court. Able to last the game for longer and have even more power and speed. That’s one thing Gail has made sure she has nailed with the institute to ensure our bodies are at their peak when they go into games.

“She’s been cracking the whip and, to be honest, that’s just what we needed. The style is slightly different from what we were used to, as she’s from New Zealand.

“It’s one of the top sports over there – you see it across billboards, in newspapers and on TV. A lot of the promotional stuff is second nature to her and she wants to make sure she brings some of that to us.

“The coaching style is different and, to be honest, it’s only since the turn of the year that we’ve got used to that and been able to adapt and take it onto the court. We’ve seen our results shift significantly – we’re 12th in the world but we’ve been beating teams who are seventh and eighth in the world.

“We’ve just qualified for the World Cup. We didn’t qualify for the last World Cup so the momentum is moving and it’s really lifted everyone in training.

“New Zealand are No.1 in the world and we played them twice in Glasgow early in the year. The top four nations are quite far ahead of everyone else. So, for us to get matches at that level was fantastic. It was a big learning curve. Those guys are a lot stronger, a lot fitter and it was a lot harder. For us to adjust to that, we had to learn very quickly. It’s something that’s going to happen at the Commonwealth Games – you have to learn from the first two or three minutes of a match and make that adjustment for the rest of the game.”

But, while matching the players at the absolute pinnacle of the sport is a virtually impossible task, Scotland are making inroads on some of the teams above them.

Last month they defeated Northern Ireland by one goal in the World Cup qualifiers in Cardiff. It is another tangible sign of how things are progressing, says MacDonald, who plays as goal shoot or goal attack. “We beat Wales back in February and have just beaten Northern Ireland. It’s been three or four years since we’ve been able to compete with these teams consistently. For us to be able to beat them both is fantastic.”

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

The Scotsman provides news, events and sport features from the Edinburgh area. For the best up to date information relating to Edinburgh and the surrounding areas visit us at The Scotsman regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website The Scotsman requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.